Orange announced on Wednesday 8 November the winners if the final stage of its social entrepreneurship competition. The ceremony was hosted with the AfricaCom Awards in Cape Town (South Africa). The winning projects were selected after careful and argumented consideration by a top level jury of experts of business ventures and information and communication technologies:

Manzer Partazer (Madagascar), 1st prize (25,000€)
The objective of the Malagasy startup is to reduce food waste by sharing excess food from restaurants, hotels or supermarkets with partner organisations such as orphanages and disadvantaged populations. A collaborative platform will allow direct communication between different stakeholders.

City Taps (Niger), 2nd prize (15,000€)
This venture bridges the gap between water services and the most disadvantaged citizens: a pre-payment service which includes a smart water meter and billing software.
The beneficiaries use their mobile to prepay for running water with any mobile phone, at any time, for any amount, which improves their household budget.

eFret.tn (Tunisia), 3rd prize (10,000€)
This website is based on the freight exchange principle. It links up senders, whether private individuals or companies, with transport and transit professionals in Tunisia. The senders publish adverts describing their needs and receive free quotations from carriers, movers, international transport companies and customs forwarding agents.

Furthermore, this year again the Orange Content division has awarded an innovative content project:Le Génie Edu (Cameroon), Special Orange Content Prize (5,000€)
This e-learning platform aims to help students having problems by providing online video courses. The startup wants every student, including those in remote areas, to have access to high-quality courses at a very low cost, anytime and anywhere.

As Entrepreneur Club regulars know well, the users of the site have also granted their support to a project of their choice, which automatically qualified for the international final:Majika (Madagascar), User Favourite project
This social company aims to facilitate economic development conditions in rural zones by supporting both access to renewable electricity and rural entrepreneurship. Majika works on an autonomous and ecological power plant in the village of Ampasindava.

The eleven Grand Prize finalists will all enjoy priority support for six months from the NGO Grow Movement and Orange experts.

Nearly 1,200 candidates submitted entries this year, displaying immense amounts of energy and intelligence to find innovative solutions to very real social issues.
“Congratulations to these entrepreneurs and particularly the winners, I wish them every success in their professional endeavours.” – Bruno Mettling, CEO of Orange Middle East and Africa

Would-be entrepreneurs and young business founders now have a few months to prepare the 2018 edition of the contest. To be followed on Entrepreneur Club!